Japan Turns a New Leaf on Study Abroad

Japan’s education ministry has announced a new plan to increase the number of students who take part in study-abroad programs, amid a sweeping fall-off in foreign study. A panel with the ministry says it will pay 40 universities from 120-million to 260-million yen ($1.4-million to $3.1-million) each in subsidies to start study-abroad programs, reports The Japan Times. Universities “will be selected based on their plans for increasing the number of Japanese students going overseas, including adding foreign instructors, English-language classes and setting up credit-transfer systems with other colleges,” says the newspaper. The subsidy is the latest attempt to reverse a decline in students going abroad and force Japan’s insular higher-education system to be more international.

Global 30, which started in 2009, is a government-sponsored bid to bring more foreign students to Japan’s universities. This year the University of Tokyo announced plans to switch the start of its academic year to the fall, likely the first step in harmonizing the nation’s colleges with the rest of the world. The education ministry has also increased this year’s scholarship budget for Japanese college-goers studying overseas to 3.1-billion yen (about $38-million) from 1.9 billion-yen the previous year.